


when the night goes quiet

by honeycbx



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeycbx/pseuds/honeycbx
Summary: it's taken them years, but they've found a careful balance.
Relationships: Cho Kyuhyun/Kim Jongwoon | Yesung/Kim Ryeowook
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	when the night goes quiet

**Author's Note:**

> i thought about writing an au where these three could just be happy but (a) i don't know if anyone would be interested (this has never stopped me before) and more importantly (b) i'm unsure how to write suju's dynamics without the decades of shared history that informs every interaction between them.
> 
> so while i wrestle with that, you get... whatever this is. it was supposed to be practice with kyuhyun's voice so i could finish stay true to north, but it evolved.
> 
> some notes: this is technically canon-verse (insofar as you can use the phrase 'canon' in this context), but i don't know exactly how relatable my interpretations of their actions are to everyone else. if you have any questions, please ask! i'll do my best to clarify any confusion for you.
> 
> other characters who were mentioned so briefly that i didn't think they warranted a tag: suju's heechul and hyukjae, winner's mino, and golden child's joochan.
> 
> as always, thank you for reading.

it’s a quiet day, one of the rare ones where hyukjae is gone and kyuhyun is free, and ryeowook’s and jongwoon’s schedules are just as blank. kyuhyun invites them over. it’s the rainy season, which means it’s pouring outside. kyuhyun makes tea. jasmine, ryeowook’s favorite, because jongwoon doesn’t hold particularly strong opinions about tea, as long as it can be ingested. when ryeowook arrives, he’s soaked to the bone and possibly deeper, dripping puddles onto the tile floor. he gives kyuhyun a smile, though, and he doesn’t push away when kyuhyun kisses him.

“i brought groceries,” ryeowook says, smiling again when kyuhyun rests their foreheads together, even though ryeowook’s hair is—worse than damp, really, and plastered to his forehead, but kyuhyun is deciding to be nice about it, even as the water sticks his own hair to his own forehead. ryeowook’s sweet fond smile makes it worth it. plastic crinkles in ryeowook’s hands, the single-use grocery bags. jongwoon’s always on them about remembering to bring reusable bags, but kyuhyun doesn’t go grocery shopping except as an impulse decision on his way home from practice, and doesn’t keep bags in his car. he should start doing that, maybe. ryeowook’s got the worst memory, of the three of them, kyuhyun’s pretty sure. never remembers to bring bags when he goes shopping.

kyuhyun takes the bags from him. plastic crinkles. ryeowook shrugs off his coat and hangs it over top of kyuhyun’s seeming not to care that it’s soaked. his sweater is damp, and kyuhyun recognizes it from a clearance rack in the women’s section of a clothing store they’d passed through during a recent shoot. ryeowook had paused, lingered a little too long over the soft knit, and moved on. it’s not the sort of purchase ryeowook would make for himself, which means kyuhyun isn’t the only person who’d noticed the look on ryeowook’s face. none of that had made it into the final episode cut, but someone had gone back for the sweater. kyuhyun doesn’t know whether he ought to be glad or concerned that ryeowook is so transparent.

maybe he isn’t, kyuhyun reasons. maybe it’s just that they’ve all spent so long together that it makes them easy to read. translucent in the right light.

ryeowook toes off his shoes in the entryway and his socks, also soaked, make a gross squelching noise. he wrinkles his nose. “i’m gonna change.”

kyuhyun kisses him again and gives him space, letting him into the house. “you know where everything is.”

he makes himself busy, in ryeowook’s absence, with the groceries. puts them away. frowns at his cabinets. stands too long standing in front of the open fridge, organizing the shelves to his liking. it’s a waste of energy, hyukjae would complain, if he were home. he’s not home, which is the whole reason kyuhyun’s organizing shelves in the first place. it’s hard, when it rains, to keep his head straight. like he’s just as foggy and gray as the sky.

ryeowook returns as kyuhyun is pouring two cups of tea, steaming. he’s wearing kyuhyun’s clothes, which steals kyuhyun’s breath right from his lungs in a strange way that kyuhyun’s never put words to. he puts his hands on ryeowook’s waist, half as a pretense to pull him closer, but also half to confirm his suspicions. the waistband of the stolen pair of sweatpants is rolled over on itself several times. it’s cute. ryeowook’s hair is damp now rather than dripping, so kyuhyun assumes he’s helped himself to a towel.

“what are we doing for dinner?” kyuhyun asks. ryeowook gives him a look, sort of exasperatedly fond, probably because dinner is hours away yet.

“i was thinking i’d cook,” he says, shy, as if kyuhyun might tell him no. “it seems like good weather for japanese-style ramen, doesn’t it?”

“it does,” kyuhyun agrees. ryeowook frowns at his phone, lips curving into a soft pout, more concentrated than upset. “who bought you that sweater?”

ryeowook glances down at himself, although he’s wearing kyuhyun’s sweatshirt now. “oh,” he says. “hyukjae hyung.”

he picks up one of the mugs, retraces his steps to the front door to pick up his backpack, and says to kyuhyun, “are you coming?”

he leads the way to the living room. kyuhyun’s left his book on the table, and ryeowook tilts his head to read the title rather than pick it up.

“it’s just—nothing,” kyuhyun says, a small excuse, and ryeowook smiles again.

“it looks interesting,” he says, and he only says it because it’s interesting to kyuhyun, not to him, but the wonderful thing about ryeowook is that he means it anyway, as if kyuhyun’s the most interesting person in the world to him. he drops his backpack on the floor and pulls out his own book. “sit with me?”

kyuhyun does, although it’s less sitting near each other; ryeowook positions himself between the arm of the couch and kyuhyun’s body, legs thrown over kyuhyun’s lap, a warm and comforting weight. kyuhyun rests his forearms on ryeowook’s thighs. they read in silence. and this has been what kyuhyun missed most of all, the quiet intimacy, the eye of the storm in their hectic lives.

he nearly misses jongwoon’s arrival, caught up in his book as he is. ryeowook definitely misses it, worse than kyuhyun is, normally, about that sort of thing. it’s okay, though. jongwoon waves wordlessly at them. kyuhyun waves back. jongwoon sheds his outermost layers in the doorway and detours through the kitchen for his own cup of tea before joining them in the living room, taking up the space created by ryeowook and kyuhyun’s proximity.

“hi, hyung,” ryeowook says, at last. his eyes are a little glassy, and he blinks, as if coming out of a dark room and readjusting to the light. jongwoon nudges ryeowook’s toes with his own.

“don’t let me distract you,” he says, soft. ryeowook nods and ducks his head into his book again, which means it’s a particularly captivating part. kyuhyun thinks he’ll be surprised if ryeowook doesn’t shed any tears tonight. 

jongwoon has his own book to entertain himself. he claims he’d gotten into the habit of reading after realizing _my two bookworm boyfriends aren’t going to pay me any attention_ , which is an accurate assessment, although he’d been a pretty avid reader even before then. he’s close enough that, whenever he doesn’t need his free hand to turn a page, he runs his fingers through kyuhyun’s hair, scratching along his scalp, in absent and mindless motions that are apt to put kyuhyun to sleep. it’s difficult to refocus on his book, but eventually he manages to reach that trancelike state again, where the rest of the world fades into the background.

he’s disrupted, some time later, by an alarm from ryeowook’s phone. he knows it’s ryeowook because the song that plays is one of sungmin’s. kyuyun pretty exclusively uses sorry sorry as his alarm tone, because it’s the most annoying sound he can think of, and therefore the most likely to get him off his ass to do whatever the alarm is meant to remind him to do. jongwoon never changes his from the default tones. ryeowook hand-picks his every time he sets a new alarm, but it’s always one of theirs.

it takes some work, on ryeowook’s part, mainly because kyuhyun is loathe to let him go, but eventually ryeowook manages to wriggle free from kyuhyun and he stands up. jongwoon makes grabby hands, and ryeowook indulges him with a kiss that lasts a few seconds before ryeowook’s tolerance wears thin and he pulls away.

jongwoon twists awkwardly to watch him until he’s out of sight. kyuhyun earmarks his book and closes it. “i’m worried about him,” he says quietly. he knows exactly what volume of his own voice is audible from the kitchen, and he knows he’s below that threshold now.

“the thing with heechul?” jongwoon asks. clarifying. kyuhyun nods. “i thought they were working on it.”

“i don’t know if it’s helping,” kyuhyun says. “heechul isn’t… he’s not _like_ ryeowook.”

jongwoon considers that. kyuhyun doesn’t know how to make him understand. kyuhyun is a lot like ryeowook, in a lot of ways, which makes implicitly understanding each other easy. in this, they’re different, but there’s enough common ground between them that kyuhyun can understand the gist of it. but where ryeowook and kyuhyun have common ground, jongwoon is on another planet entirely. more accurately, probably, he’s on earth, with the rest of humanity, and it’s only ryeowook and kyuhyun who are lost to space.

“ryeowook isn’t… he’s not trying… to make a statement.” kyuhyun pauses, trying not to work himself up. it’s frustrating. the right words are just out of reach, and kyuhyun starts a lot of sentences before realizing the word he needs is further away than he expected, and has to wait for it to come closer, or else start a whole new sentence to avoid it. jongwoon nods, understanding and patient. “with heechul, it’s about… he wants to prove that it’s not, that he’s… that there’s no such thing. as femininity. or, it’s made up. it doesn’t matter. he can, you know, wear skirts, if—if he wants to. because skirts aren’t… _for_ women. right?”

it takes a minute. sometimes the patience has to be a two way street, because kyuhyun needs the time to find the words, and jongwoon needs the time to piece together all his fragments. it’s okay. they make it work. eventually, jongwoon nods his understanding, gestures for kyuhyun to continue.

“ryeowook wants that. that label. he needs… needs that, to make sense of it. of everything. the world, people around him, expect things that he can’t, he can’t give. right?” kyuhyun frowns at his own hands. “wait. what i mean is, is that he does it for himself. no one else. because it makes him… makes him feel more comfortable. in his own skin. because without this, he doesn’t… have that comfort. it’s just not there.”

“you’ve talked to him about this before,” jongwoon guesses, and he’s right, of course. kyuhyun wouldn’t feel nearly so comfortable speaking so deeply on the subject if he’d never talked with ryeowook about it.

“we’re… alike. in a lot of ways. not this, but… we talk.” kyuhyun hesitates again. “i spent, you know, half my life, feeling like i was the only person in the world who, who was like me. and then the next half of my life side by side with—with my soulmate, really.” he pauses again, uncertain suddenly. “i don’t mean—you’re not—”

“relax,” jongwoon interrupts. “i know. you and ryeowook, you had something special way before i ever got involved. i know that. and you have no idea how happy it makes me to know that you have someone who makes you feel… less of what you went through back then. both of you.”

kyuhyun nods. presses his palms against his knees. doesn’t know what else to do with his hands, but the cotton layer feels itchy, or maybe that’s his skin that feels too tight to contain him. he breathes. jongwoon watches for a minute, then seems to decide kyuhyun has gotten the message. he opens his book again, thumb sliding tenderly between the pages. their night won’t go any deeper than this quiet domesticity, largely due to ryeowook, but that knowledge doesn’t make kyuhyun’s thoughts about jongwoon’s fingers any cleaner. he pages open his own book to distract himself.

eventually, ryeowook calls to them. “dinner’s ready.”

he’s already set the table, and so they sit and dig in. more accurately, kyuhyun and jongwoon do. ryeowook doesn’t reach for the food, captivated by jongwoon’s process of dressing and eating his ramen, and kyuhyun understands, the moment the first bite reaches jongwoon’s lips, with the look that crosses his face. ryeowook, quiet genius that he is, has engineered this whole night to suit his purposes.

“ryeowook,” jongwoon says slowly. “how on earth…”

kyuhyun takes the first bite, as if that might help him understand. it tastes strangely, distantly familiar. ryeowook is barely breathing.

“you’re incredible,” jongwoon says. “has anyone ever told you that?”

ryeowook shrugs, evasive. kyuhyun knows that people have, plenty of them, but still not nearly enough, and ryeowook believes it so rarely. “what is it?”

“there’s this ramen place that hyung likes,” ryeowook says finally. “it’s in tokyo. one of those little hole-in-the-wall places. the kind you like to recommend, kyuhyunnie.”

kyuhyun’s familiar with the concept. he nods.

“we went there once,” ryeowook reminds him. “a few years ago, after a kry schedule.”

kyuhyun stares at his bowl of ramen with newfound appreciation. “this is the same…?”

“i don’t know,” ryeowook says. “i thought—i mean, i tried. to reverse engineer it. we haven’t… i mean, jongwoon hyung hasn’t been able to go for so long now. i thought i’d try. i practiced a lot, and i wasn’t sure if it would even be close enough tonight to be recognizable. i—i don’t know.”

“it’s amazing,” jongwoon insists. “you’re amazing, ryeowook-ah. thank you.”

ryeowook manages a soft smile, laced with his ever-present anxiety. “i’m glad you like it.”

at last, ryeowook picks up his chopsticks. they eat dinner in mostly-silence, though jongwoon interrupts his eating occasionally to mention, off-handed, a new song he’s listening or a show he’s watching. and mostly he only says it to break the silence, but ryeowook’s probably making a mental list that he’ll revisit so that he can come back to jongwoon and say _hey, i really liked that song you mentioned_. ryeowook, who barely remembers to take care of himself on a good day, who remembers everything important and then a lot of the not-so-important things, too, when it comes to the people he loves. kyuhyun feels a sudden rush of fondness so strong that he has to duck his head, hiding in his bowl to avoid addressing it out loud. ryeowook smiles at him, which means he’s taken notice, but he doesn’t say anything or make kyuhyun say anything. small victories.

later, ryeowook sits on the counter while jongwoon washes dishes and kyuhyun dries them and expertly dodges the soapy suds that jongwoon occasionally flings at him. it makes ryeowook laugh every time, which is why jongwoon keeps doing it, because he’d do anything to make ryeowook laugh, and it would be worth it. kyuhyun doesn’t blame him. ryeowook plays one of golden child’s new songs over the noise. kyuhyun only recognizes it because he’d watched their episode of weekly idol, with hyukjae. ryeowook’s got this bad habit of adopting dongsaengs, and joochan’s his latest victim, and it’s cute. it makes kyuhyun wish he’d had someone like ryeowook, when he debuted. he’d had _ryeowook_ , obviously, but in a different sense. the ‘experienced senior’ role is not one that anyone’s ever played for kyuhyun.

he gets a faceful of soap bubbles for his distraction. jongwoon manages, expertly, to avoid all the dangerous spots, so kyuhyun wipes foam off his cheek and fake-glares, fighting back the smile that threatens to surface in response to ryeowook’s glee.

“pay attention,” jongwoon scolds him, not true scolding. kyuhyun’s heard his real-scolding voice before, directed at siwon and hyukjae, years and years ago. it’s never surfaced since. “i’m washing faster than you can dry.”

“maybe if ryeowook helped,” kyuhyun suggests. it’s a joke, but an easy way to loop ryeowook into the conversation. kyuhyun worries, sometimes.

“i cooked,” ryeowook says, neatly excusing himself. “i’m the playlist curator and unhelpful cheerleader, nothing more.”

“and we appreciate you for it,” jongwoon says, a cheesiness that makes ryeowook wrinkle his nose. kyuhyun picks up another bowl and wipes it dry and puts it away.

when they’re done, they watch a movie. one of the new ones jongwoon’s been wanting to see. ryeowook answers his texts, mostly, but somehow always has the right answer when kyuhyun takes it upon himself to quiz him about the contents of the film. jongwoon seems to find it amusing, anyway, and they’re all sort of half-asleep when the credits roll.

kyuhyun drags ryeowook to bed, and ryeowook fusses the whole time, and kyuhyun ignores him, and jongwoon follows them with that same idiotic fond smile on his face. ryeowook disappears into the bathroom, and returns before jongwoon and kyuhyun have finished puzzling out what jongwoon will wear to bed.

“this was good,” ryeowook says. he pulls his legs under him and watches the other two change. he doesn’t mean anything by it, watching, and kyuhyun knows this, so he doesn’t let himself think of it as anything. it’s the same quiet intimacy that’s permeated their whole night, and he’s not keen on ruining the mood. even if getting laid might be kind of nice. “tonight, i mean.”

“yeah,” kyuhyun agrees. he’s done changing first, climbs onto the bed next to ryeowook. “kiss me?”

ryeowook wrinkles his nose. “brush your teeth first.”

kyuhyun doesn’t need to be told twice. he slides off the bed again, and takes his time brushing, impatient as he is, because with his luck ryeowook’s timing him. when he gets back, ryeowook kisses him.

“thank you,” he says, soft, and means _thank you for putting up with me_. 

“always,” kyuhyun replies, and means _always_. jongwoon joins them after his own trip to the bathroom, gives each of them a kiss, and then squishes ryeowook between them, so close that ryeowook gasps for breath and giggles when jongwoon lets go. kyuhyun rubs his own shoulder, which will probably be sore tomorrow. jongwoon doesn’t know his own strength, sometimes.

“this was good,” ryeowook repeats. kyuhyun turns off the lights, and joins in the little chorus of _i love you_ s. and when sleep washes over them, it’s a welcome thing.


End file.
